Game, sex and match

POOR Andy Murray. Our national tennis hero achieves a historic win in Spain this weekend only to find his moment curvaceously overshadowed by a dozen ball girls who are unmistakeably fashion models.

The Madrid Masters ball girls, in their tight-fitting Hugo Boss tops and tiny skirts, have become established figures at the men's tournament. But while the likes of Roger Federer, with his handsome looks, is complemented by such beauteous ball handlers, young Andy looked like he'd turned up for a student night only to find himself at a Hollywood after-party.

Yet while serious sports-lovers and feminists are making outraged noises about naked marketing ploys and the objectification of women, Spanish tennis authorities are cheerfully hitting back the accusations of sexism that have been flying at them from all directions like balls from a training machine.

Indeed, in an open-minded attempt to address such criticism a couple of years ago, the indignant tournament organisers recruited none other than the lovely Maria Sharapova for scouting out male models to perform as ball-boys at Madrid's WTA Women's Masters. If ustedes want equality, ustedes shall have it, the tennis chiefs proclaimed in their sultry accents. First round to them, then.

They also insist that the ball girls and boys are more than pretty faces, having all received coaching from official instructors, including an introduction to the rules of tennis for those that need it. Admittedly this will be of scant comfort to the tennis-obsessed school kids who can name every Wimbledon winner back to 1877, but whose visages are more Picasso than Paco Rabanne. However, Spanish fashion promoters hope it will play an important role in encouraging the nation's teenagers to invest a little more time in their appearance by putting down their book of tennis facts and doing something to address their unnatural attachment to stone-washed denim and mullet haircuts.

In these days of airbrushed perfection, the surprise is not that Spanish tennis chiefs insist on having only the most fetching of ball fetchers for the big matches, but that more opportunities haven't yet been exploited to fill important sporting roles with gorgeous catwalk types. (Just to reiterate: the exploitation here relates to the opportunities, not the semi-naked teenagers being encouraged to bend over and perform various lithe acts of ball retrieval on global television, who obviously aren't being exploited at all.)

When sport, fashion and beautiful people can be brought together in such a marketing dream, it seems the height of folly not to make the most of it.